Genre-ification... is entertainment getting stale? - Review

Analyzing trends in the entertainment industry is no easy task. Especially considering the bulk of time required to produce long form content like a TV series, movie, or a video game. But lately, there is an outcry of flak aimed at media companies for falling into ruts or copying whatever recently "broke the box office."

There are a lot of easy examples of "genre dominance" to point to throughout history, you have the Westerns from Cold War Era US film, the Battle Royale genre in gaming currently, the explosion of Sitcoms from the 1980s until (and I admit this number is debatable) 2010, and of course the dystopian YA fiction from the 2000s. All of these examples have precedents that paved the way for their existence, and all of them have burlesque* parodies that poke fun at the formulas those specific trends created. So, if this has been happening for so long, why is it still going on?

Patterns in media might be older than you think, and people complaining about patterns in media isn't that fresh of a take either. In fact, a lot of early Roman plays actually utilized a list of specific character archetypes that were subbed in and out to make comprehension easier for the audience. These plays were called Fabulea Palliata and unsurprisingly, most of these plays were usually originally Greek. Each character would wear a mask that signified which archetype they were. These stock characters were generally typified by a single flaw, like "greedy dude," or "overly superstitious neighbor." Part of the fun in these characters were that they were so simple, making their actions predictable and more comedic. That being said, the varying stories themselves were nuanced, but the characters across all of them stayed the same (or varied in presence).

The patterning, in Fabulea Palliata's case, was more so a feature, than a "product of the industry." The character's weren't ripoffs, but rather shorthand, used to make it that much easier to get to the "interesting parts." In a lot of ways, that's still true today. In fact, a lot of screenwriting books will suggest that you follow traditional archetypes or vetted character molding guides for all of your work. Whether that's offensive to the audience's intelligence or not, is up to the audience! But, obviously, no one is too upset, since reboots, TV shows, and cinematic universes rely on essentially the same character recognition formula and those are just killing it right now.

Before you say, "reboots and cinematic universes are new," let me make it clear that serial novels that dealt with one specific character or group of characters did the exact same thing and that a lot of plays took the same formula or setting and just simply tweaked perspectives. Plays that used a stock list of character were still popular after Shakespeare died even. Some literary theorists even take it a step further and suggest all characters and plot lines are derivative of some copied archetype or story graph.

Just to clear up personal bias: my general response to this is that if you split anything down to the molecular level, you'll always end up with a pile of atoms. So, I tend to agree to disagree with anyone who claims "nothing is new under the sun." Call me an optimist.

So, characters have always seemed to follow specific patterns in media, big deal. What does that have to do with the 83rd True Crime podcast I stumbled upon on Spotify. WELL. Genere-ification is comfortable. By knowing where you're going before you get there, you're able to quickly find something your brain already knows it likes. Much like the characters from Fabulea Palliata plays, there is little anxiety in experiencing something that follows the rules of something you already know you love. Which is exactly why the entertainment industry is quick to fall into the ruts that are safe, but at the same time, you can find outliers who exist within genres, but are in some ways capable of poking fun of them, or that betray the audience's expectations.

Deadpool exists in the superhero genre, but makes fun of it from within. Cabin in the Woods plays with genre similarly, by making a joke out of traditional horror film moments, but also by using them. In television, Netflix's American Vandal parodies the True Crime genre, and shows like The Office and Seinfeld manage to take two traditional approaches to sitcoms and flip them on their heads. But all of these "outliers" as I called them, still exist in their genre bubbles. They don't challenge the formula, they use it against itself.

So, are genres making the entertainment industry stale? Probably not. Is the market making the industry stale? Maybe! It depends on what you like, and if you want your expectations met or challenged. Otherwise, there really is no way you can generalize a claim like that. But public perception influences the public's wallets. And nothing changes a company's course faster than a lack or abundance of money. But what is clear, is that patterns and ruts have a precedence in the industry, the same can be said for work that is self-aware of these patterns. But let's be clear here. Just because work shares the same "genre" doesn't mean its the same. Netflix's Jessica Jones for example is a super hero show, just like the CW's The Flash, but each show plays out completely different, even though at their core they follow similar trends.

Ultimately, genres and labels have been around too long to be shaken from the zeitgeist overnight. The tailoring they allow makes marketing and consuming entertainment easier, but breaks in the formula seems to draw bigger and bigger crowds making a shift in narrative media much more likely during our lifetimes.

*I borrow the phrase burlesque from John G. Cawalti's essay "Chinatown and Generic Transformation in Recent American Films." In it Cawalti defines what happens to a tired formula and explores the different types of films that come after a trending style/genre. The type I am referencing here is humor burlesque. Cawalti uses Mel Brooks's Blazing Saddles as his example of humor burlesque, which pokes fun at a variety of genres and trends in the film industry, through the lens of a western. The essay is an interesting read and can be found in the book Film Genre Reader Vol. III by Barry Keith Grant. Cawalti's essay is fascinating and worth a read. I found the essay itself through a video about the movie Logan by Nerdwriter1. Nerdwriter makes fascinating video essays on Youtube about anything in the entertainment industry. Check him out!